Thursday, December 07, 2006

Your guide to the DIC x Liverpool takeover

Whilst it is perfectly understandable that Arabian royalty would want LFC as the crown jewel of their sporting empire, they must be made aware of all of the traditions they are becoming the guardians of.

Personally, I would suggest a Scouse embassy in Dubai, and a Minister of Scouse culture to teach them the finer points of extracting the Michael.

Let us use this space to gather our bona fides as we inform and apprise our Arabian Knights that we intend to Keep Dubai Scouse.

Myths:1. "DIC" on our jerseys.Investment does not equate sponsorship. Do you see Abramovich or Glazier's names on Chelsea's & Mancs' jerseys respectively? No, of course not, simpletons.

2. "DIC" as sponsorsWhy would an investment house waste marketing money to float their brand name?

3. Abramovich-style "investments"DIC are serious investors, not some rich Russian billionaire spending loose change to make him feel superior because of his physical inferiority

4. No, injured players aren't going to be put down like horses (apart from Kewell, maybe)

Is the proposed takeover of Liverpool Football Club by DIC a good thing?

View from Dubai Reds, Official Supporters Club Dubai

Football has changed. Gone are the days when the players would have a pint down the local before the game and then join the supporters after the game for a chat and another pint. Today football, Premiership and European in particular, is big business and this trend will continue. With this growth comes greed, everyone wants a piece of the pie: from the players, to the agents, to the governing bodies, to the TV broadcasters - the result of this is elitism. Without significant cash injection will any team other than Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal or Liverpool every win the Premiership? Unlikely. The issue here is not whether this is good for the game or not, it is how to develop our team and correlate this with the way that association football is likely to head in the future.

So what do supporters really want? Do we stick to our guns, proudly talk about not selling out and refuse the investment? Likely impact - we remain at Anfield, are at best a mid table team each year with a potential UEFA Cup run the best European prospect. We can't attract players and attendances fall. In 10 years time we can proudly tell our kids that although we have won nothing we never sold out to the commercialism of football.

Reality? We want LFC to be the biggest and best club in the world while retaining our history and heritage. We want to be at the business end of the top Domestic and European competitions. We want to be able to afford and attract the best players in the world. In a nutshell, we want to win.

Which brings us back to our original question, is the takeover a good thing for LFC?

Although there is some concern over the proposed takeover of LFC by DIC we believe that it will allow the club to compete with the increased financial muscle of the other leading Premiership teams. We agree that foreign ownership of LFC is not ideal but delving a bit deeper it may actually be better than giving it to a rich, passionate, local or UK based owner.

The basis for this is that any owner with a passion for the team is potentially likely to want to have a degree of control over the way the club is run, the players that are bought etc - this is natural as any passionate Reds supporter will feel that they know what is best and how they want to achieve this. This may bring short term benefit but will it really sustain the club in the long run and how will DIC be any better?

Dubai, contrary to popular belief does not have all the oil; it is actually down the road in Abu Dhabi. Dubai's oil revenue account for only around 10-15% of revenue, the majority of the rest comes from tourism. Dubai estimates tourism numbers to grow from 5mn in 2006 to 15mn on 2010 - that's a big ask but is critical to the strategic development plans of Dubai. Think that's ambitious - well they have big plans here including the biggest building in the world, offshore Islands in the shape of Palm Trees, a replica of the World, as a series of man made islands approx 5km off the coast (www.theworld.ae) and potential Olympic and World Cup bids for 2016 and 2020 respectively.

The reason for the paragraph above is that Dubai, in order to achieve the above, needs exposure on the world stage. Sponsorship of Arsenal, the World Cup, Premiership referees, cricket umpires by Emirates, think Emirates and what what to you associate it with? Dubai is the likely answer, even more so if you watched the Arsenal v Hamburg matches! The list goes on - Godolphin, Melbourne Cup, Rugby, Australian Cricket Team etc. All this highlights that Dubai is becoming a global brand but the Government here is also very shrewd in terms of investment and the leader in this field is Dubai Holdings, the parent company of DIC.

Dubai Holdings is such a big player that they don't need to sponsor a team or event, they can simply buy. The difference between them and other owner of football clubs (Abramovich for example) is that they are not buying as part of some pet project or whim. It is a very carefully calculated investment decision, evaluated on the basis of getting viable long term gains. You can rest assured that you will not see Mr Ansari at every game with a big grin on his face or rumours that he has mandated that one of ‘his’ new signings plays every game. DIC will in all likelihood provide the investment, take a back seat and let the Anfield board do their job of returning LFC to the glory days of the 70’s and 80’s.